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POEMS FOR L. S. 


/ 

LOUIS GRUDIN 
«• 


J 


AT THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA 
1918 



Copyright 1918 


BY 

Louis Grudin 


/ 


Some of the poems here printed 
are included by permission of the 
editors of Poetry, A Magazine of 
Verse, Chicago, The Lyric and The 
New Republic. 





POEMS FOR L. S. 



0 

» > 

0 > 

1 > 9 






©CU5U178 


POEMS FOR L. S. 


Morning (11) 

Prayer (12) 

Walls (13) 

The Woolworth (14) 
My People (15) 
Song-Stuff (16) 
Nocturne (17) 

Prayer (18) 

Completion (20) 

Song (22) 

The Chase (23) 

Of Pain (25) 

Song for Worship (26) 
Lady (27) 

Refugee (28) 

Tides (29) 

Memory (30) 

Of One Girl (31) 

First Love (33) 


POEMS FOR L. S. 


Warning (34) 

Beggar (35) 

Beginnings (36) 

Age (37) 

Salvage (39) 

Poem for Lost Days (40) 
The Deep Heart (41) 
Seagate (43) 

Fruit-Bearing (46) 


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POEMS FOR L. S. 


.© Ci. A 5 1 J 178 


POEMS FOR L. S. 


MORNING 

Here in the beginning, 
I go around the edges 
Of worlds. O, do not 
Shut me out. 


PRAYER 

We are built out of days. 

Are not our souls a black heaven ? 
When the sun comes, 

We live. May there be 
Much light. 


( 12 ) 


WALLS 
Why do we love 

Tall walls ? Why do we build them ? 
What peace is there 
In heights and distances? O my life, 
Spilt out in little places. 


( 13 ) 


THE WOOLWORTH 

They will fashion their cities after you, 
When there is peace, 

Pale glory in the mist, 

White waterfall of granite 
From heaven. 


( 14 ) 


MY PEOPLE 


Here are we all 
Stricken and blown about, 
And made old 
And yellow 
With our days. 

Here are our faces 
Made heavy with flesh. 
And our hearts 
Fattened for death. 

Here are our eyes 
Made gray 
With dust of hours. 

Here are we also 
Drawn thin as elm branches 
After a wind. 

Here our young 
Grow old ahead of us. 

Here our children 
Are buried. 


( 15 ) 


SONG-STUFF 


Of what we sang at night. 
What we heard 
In a desert of avenues, 
Where there are only 
Stones and hearts, 

Stones and hearts, 

And brutal things, big things, 
Dreams without laughter. 
Fever without vision, 

Crying of dry hearts, 

Hearts and granite, 

Hearts and granite, 

Of where our hearts are, 

Of them that ventured, 

My heart goes crying 
Immortally. 


( 16 ) 


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NOCTURNE 

Night rises about me like a sunset. 

Under my window, 

The city is like a dream 
Full of stars. Walls with eyes that do 
not blink, 

Never. 

And I am looking in the face 
Of thedark; with theshadowsof all things 
My neighbors. 

With my dead promises, 

And the poems I have forgotten, 

To sing me to death. 


( 17 ) 


PRAYER 


You have given 
Days in a city, 

Faces in a street, 

Hours in a window, 

Mornings that woke 
Shouting from sleep, 

And other things also, 

Laughter in your houses, 

The hands of many people, 

Eyes to meet, 

Words to give away, 

White evenings, nights like flames 
On your avenues, 

And more than these, God, 

What you gave afterward. 


( 18 ) 


© Gl. A 5 1 1 1 7 8 


Prayer 


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For my eyes, that were drowned 
In gray days, for the fever 
That left me a silence, 

For the awful, unalterable things 
You gave me to know, 


Even for the sores 
That came to my body, 

And the sins that grew sick in it, 
And all your desolate nights, 
My prayer, God. 







( 19 ) 


COMPLETION 


A dismal song 

For your shrunk loins and narrow breast, 
my friend, 

And for my own weariness. 

What has been done to us, 

What has been drawn from us, 

That we are so weak? 

All gathered wealth, grown slowly, 

The fulness between the shoulders, 

The ripe heart, 

Spent, thinned and withered. 

O, what is so terrible, 

After all things 

That we have undergone ? 

Aching loins, 

Eyes waiting for sleep ; one lying 
In quiet pain. 


( 20 ) 


©GLA5U 178 


Completion 


O, our thin bodies are full. 
O, the days are gathered. 
O, life is complete 
In pain. 


( 21 ) 


SONG 

From the high storms 
I come. 

With the big winds 
I will wake them. 

All the little streets 
Will whine. 

All the windows 
Will be shaken 
Like drums. 


( 22 ) 


THE CHASE 


Songs, songs 
Songs for you. 

You cannot 
Hide beyond them. 

Waves, 

High waves, 

Long stretches of my heart, 

To gather you around. 

Songs, songs, 

To wake you, 

Songs, close 

On your mouth, red songs, 

Fierce songs, 

To hold you struggling.songsseeking 
Your eyes, songs 
Laughing over you. 


( 23 ) 


. * 


The Chase 


Songs, songs, 

Breathing deep, 

Songs panting 
After you, songs 
To overcome you, songs 
To hold you quiet, songs 
Hard songs, strong arms 
In embrace. 





OF PAIN 

I want to be strong. 

I will be like a precipice, 

Sheer and hard. And your beauty 
Will be bruised sunlight 
Against my heart. 

I will be strong. I will cover over 
All wounds. 

When I am stronger than you, 
Yellow-head, wild thing, witch, 
You will love me. 


( 25 ) 


SONG FOR WORSHIP 

The curve of a lip 
Is like the soft line 
Of a vase. But a mouth made round 
With passion, is a marvelous thing. 
Deep eyes are only shadow. 

But eyes wide with a dream 
Are wonderful. 

You are like a bronze 
Of Rodin: passion 
Cast into a body, filling it 
With rhythm. 


( 26 ) 


©&A511 178 


*>3513 

Tf8']"ns 



LADY 

Having found you, I have found 
All love. 

Following you, I have run 
Past boyhood; Gray-eyes, 

I will make you afraid. 


( 27 ) 


REFUGEE 


A new sky 
Is around me. 

I have crawled over 
Dark tides. 

I am tired, 

O heavy throat, made light 
With song, eyes clear, 

After sorrows. I want to hide, 
O music, 

Voices, 

Rhythm of arms. 

O teasing winds 
In stripped branches. 

O cruel fingers 
On wounds. 


(28) 


TIDES 

We are rising together 

On a wave. O, when we swing above 

The crest, and are shattered foam 

In a sea. We shall leave bubbles, sinking 
In the dark hollow. 


( 29 ) 


MEMORY 

Where have they gone, our days? 
Into a valley 
In our eyes. 

In our mouths, 

On our foreheads. 


( 30 ) 


OF ONE GIRL 


Music that I heard 
Was winds rocking. 

Was dropping waves. 

No echoes 
Are in my heart. 

Tunes I heard, 

Hearts run wild, 

Sunk hearts 

Dragged under tides, young hearts 
Without quiet. 

In my heart there are 
No tunes. 

Loves I heard: 

Agony of loves, 

Close bodies, arms 
Made weary, 


( 31 ) 


Of One Girl 


Hunger of love 
Grown full; 

And I heard lovers 
Laughing, 

Sweet women, 

Dreamy in the morning. 

And the new eyes of girls 
In new shame. 

O my heart, 

Drawn thin. 

O nude warm night, lonely 
With one breath. O lovely wild one, 
Gone with no touch 
Of hands, nor smile, nor even 
Dropping of eyes. 

O days aching 
With no song. 


( 32 ) 


FIRST LOVE 


I have a long time 
Of pain inside of my heart. 

Having come upon you, girl 
With gray eyes, I have come 
On strange days. 

I have born a wild thing 
Inside my heart. 

Life is not good, 

That walks so slowly, 

That is drawn out so long 
Among our days. 

Life is not good, 

That sits like a city 
Between us. I have fought 
Past a storm to come near you. 
I have gone a long way 
To your house. 


( 33 ) 


WARNING 


For the sky, 

A white sun ; and for the sea, 

A moon. Green foreheads of hills, 

Are given a wind. So shall your face 
Be caught by a passion ; so shall your eyes 
be light, 

Answering mine. What is beauty, 

But a violin? And the singing 
Is love. I will make loud 
Your heart. 


( 34 ) 


© Cl. A 5 1 1178 


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BEGGAR 


Be with me. 

And seeing beauty, I will not go, 

A beggar 

For beauty not mine. 

And music will not be 
A weary cry. 

And all love that passes, will not echo 
Love that I was not given, 

And a death that was left me, 

And a heart crying, 

And a sick night. 


( 35 ) 


BEGINNINGS 

We were awkward 
Suddenly; for long moments 
We were quiet, or laughed foolishly, 
Letting go of ourselves, and telling 
Among pauses, and the avoiding of eyes. 
Many secrets. 

Feeling we had done 
Some great sin, 

Some marvelous thing, 

In sitting together, 

Beyond a silence, 

And shame. 


( 36 ) 


AGE 


I had a faith, 

Knowing what was beautiful. 

In the strange world, 

Mists cleared. 

I was bewildered 
With new things. 

Widening and embracing 
New shores of life. 

Life was a sequence I could never lose, 
Even in disaster. 

Life grew around itself, 

Larger and wider, even 
Upon broken life. 

Life was a little ripple, 

Spreading where God stirred 
In a young heart. 


( 37 ) 


Age 


My heart widened. 

A broader wave of life, that grew to you, 
And wrapped you round. 


( 38 ) 


SALVAGE 

More than relics, 

These. Wreckage, 

Driftwood of song. 

From the laden backs of a tide, 
Drawing away 
Unburdened. 

Come and seek 
Under the waters. 


( 39 ) 


POEM FOR LOST DAYS 

Each day we have had, 
Ran in the flood 
Of other days. 

The stream is broken 
Behind me : how 
Shall I find you, 

In a quiet place, 

In a pause? 

How remember, 

You having gone? 


( 40 ) 


THE DEEP HEART 


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THE DEEP HEART 

Do we not see 

The same days? 

Facing the morning, our hands 
Touch, but our hearts 

Are bent away. 

Your eyes are so wide: 

Is the sky bluer 

For you? 


One day you hid tears from me. 
From the world you hide 

Many things. 

You are deep 

With secrets. 


You love me to know, 
To seek them out, 


The Deep Heart 


You love me to know them, 

Seeing you. 

Gather me 
Into your heart. 

By night we have had 
The same tears. 

How have you met the morning ? 

Nothing is left 

For me, in the morning. 

My heart is washed clean ; a high rock 
After the tide. 


( 42 ) 

©CU5J3178 





SEAGATE 


O tired feet, 
Lean heart, 
Quiet. 

O lean heart, 
Yellow seabeach, 
Burnt with days, 
Lying at rest, 
Ever. 

Wrung clean 
With thin seas. 


* * * 


I gave, not only 
A dream, 

And memory; not only 
All I had; I gave 
Also, a long cry 
That could not reach you 


Seagate 


The wide-eyed nights. 

Even a long sobbing 

Like the waters that were prone 

At the edge of the earth. 

Even of a heart 
Exhausted, 

I gave. 

Touch me 

With your arms, because 
I love. 

Find me, 

And my heart will be 
A dawning sun. 

A great wave rolling 
From the sea. 

* * * 

As though my heart 

Were clean; as though my eyes 

Were like cool mornings. 


( 44 ) 


Seagate 


As though my heart 

Were a night light with winds. 

I am not any of these. 

The sea has held you, 

Pleading after 
Your feet. 

Bowed and prostrate, with white 
fingers 

At your ankles. 

* * * 

You are alone 
In your days, and I 
Am alone also, 

Lady with wet hair, 

Near the sea. 


( 45 ) 


FRUIT-BEARING 


We are only more 
Ourselves. 

We have spread and grown, 
Even to fruit-bearing. 

What shall we do 
With wisdom, now 
Having reached our age? 
What shall we do with life. 
Hoarded together? 

As though we are larger 
Than ourselves. As though 
Our lives would serve 
Some purpose, greater 
Than life. 

Let us wither, 

Having left seed. 


( 46 ) 


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